


such a fooled heart (beatin' so fast)

by Nokomis



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Memory Related, Quentin is sent into Eliot's happy place, True Love's Kiss, While Margo uses the ice axes on the Monster, a more permanent escape from the happy place, diverges from canon post-410, to help him break free
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 11:02:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18387131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nokomis/pseuds/Nokomis
Summary: This was Eliot’s mind, but Quentin was welcome here.





	such a fooled heart (beatin' so fast)

**Author's Note:**

> Mostly written post 4x10, this veers off as AU after Margo finds the ice axes. Huge thanks to Luna for looking over this! Written for quixoticdino ‘s prompt on tumblr, _Q figures out a way to incept the monster and visits Eliot in the happy place._

It was Margo’s arrival, bearing axes and determination, that finally cut through Quentin’s despair. He’d lost hope -- he’d been holding onto the frayed shreds of it for so long that the news that the Monster wasn’t seeking out a body for himself but for his sister, for another monster so terrible that the gods themselves had torn her asunder, had destroyed his hope -- but Margo had regained hers, and was more than willing to push Quentin back towards his. 

(What she’d actually done was take one look at him, whacked him in the arm with the flat of one of the Sorrows, and had announced in her most regal, demanding tone, “Buck up, sad sack. I don’t have time for your moping, we’ve got an Eliot to save.” Quentin had nodded, just to avoid getting hit again, just to avoid voicing all his fears aloud and infecting Margo with his own despair, but soon enough it was Margo’s determination that had relit his own fire.)

“So we gotta find a way to evict this monster from our Eliot,” Margo said thoughtfully. “The Sorrows are supposed to exorcise him, but then again, the god-killing bullet did fuck-all, so I vote we have a backup plan.”

“Like what?” Quentin asked.

He wasn’t at all surprised when Margo pointed an axe toward the pile of books on the table. “Research montage, bitches!”

Quentin didn’t point out that they’d done nothing but research since they’d come back to themselves. This time there was an increased sense of urgency, knowing how close they were to the Monster making its final moves.

“The biggest risk is that Eliot won’t be able to regain control of his body, right?” Alice asked, staring intently at a page. “What if we made sure that Eliot knew when to fight for control?”

“He already managed it once,” Margo said thoughtfully. “Did he mention how?”

Everyone looked at Penny. Penny shrugged. “He said he was hiding in his happy place. That it was a kind of home base for him while he was stuck within his mind. From what I could tell, he was able to sneak through his own memories and find his way into the edges of the Monster’s.”

“So in theory we could have Eliot attack the Monster’s consciousness at the same time that Margo axes him,” Julia said. “Do the old one-two punch.” She mimed said punches, adorably. 

“Actually,” Alice said, crinkling her nose. “There’s something… Hang on.” She set down the book she was looking through and hurried out of the room. She returned shortly, holding one of the notebooks she had filled with her niffin-knowledge. She flipped through the pages quickly, then slammed it down on the table, pointing to an incredibly complicated spell spiralling across the page.

“What is that?” Quentin asked, peering at the spell. It brought together elements he’d never seen together before. In fact he remembered a first year lecture where he was told that they would actively cancel each other out.

“Well, we know that the axes are going to do their best to expel the Monster from Eliot’s body, and that we need someone on the inside, so to speak, to help Eliot take his body back. This spell will help with both.” Alice tapped the innermost symbol. “It’s an old spell meant to help awaken people cursed into the dream lands, and in theory it should let someone slip past the monster into Eliot’s mind and lend him strength to take over in case the axes only weaken the Monster.”

“There’s no busting out of there,” Penny said. “You weren’t there. It’s locked up tight. The Monster’s mind is powerful. Really fucking powerful.”

“Wouldn’t sneaking someone else into Eliot’s mind alert the Monster to our plan?” Margo asked. “A backup plan that ruins the main plan is a shitty one.”

“We’ll just have to use someone the Monster would expect to find in Eliot’s mind,” Alice said breezily. “Penny, did you see anyone while you were there?”

“No,” Penny said, “It was only for a minute, and it was just Eliot in the cottage.”

“So who goes?” Julia asked, glancing over at Margo. 

Margo rolled her eyes. “Look, I would normally be first in line, but I’m on axe duty. Obviously Q’s gotta be the one to go.”

Quentin wanted to argue, to say that he wasn’t sure that he would be a normal fixture in Eliot’s mind, but then he remembered the way Eliot’s smile had shone as he’d echoed Quentin’s own words back at him -- _proof of concept_ \-- and he nodded. 

Alice didn’t quite look at him as she agreed, just turned to Julia. “It’s a dangerous spell. I want you there.”

Julia didn’t argue that she was without her godly power, just agreed. 

*

It took two agonizing days to gather everything needed for the spell. Quentin was certain every time that the Monster was going to notice, was going to realize that they had another plan going, but it never did. 

The irony of Quentin being the one to delve into Eliot’s mind was that it put him in the least amount of danger. Josh showed up to help Margo with Operation McStabby, as Margo dubbed it, and Penny and Kady were quickly recruited to help. That left Quentin working on the mind spell with Alice and Julia, which Quentin tried his best to not be uncomfortable with. 

Alice was trying her best to make amends, after all, and he had forgiven her. It was just everything else, the way she still sometimes looked at him out of the corner of her eye, that made him avoid her. He hoped to regain their friendship, eventually, but his romantic feelings for her had long been put to rest, and he’d had far longer to put them behind him than she had. 

It turned out that the reason Alice wanted Julia to help with the spell was practical; they needed far more magic than was present in ambient levels, and Julia was indestructible. Alice found a spot to do the spell near a juncture in the magic lines, and the plan was basically for Julia to hulk-smash the pipeline to give them the juice needed to perform the spell. If all went according to plan, they would do the spell, then Alice and Julia would guard his body and keep the magic channeled so that he could use it to help Eliot free himself.

Operation McStabby was happening in Fillory; Fen’s discovery of a cache of magic had been timely. Margo wanted to make sure the Sorrows had enough juice to dispel a god, and there was more than enough of it in Whitespire. 

They’d been planning and coordinating this for days, had been working towards this for months, and yet Quentin still felt utterly unprepared when he stepped into the center of the circle Alice had drawn on the pavement. 

Alice reached out and tucked something into his hand. Quentin opened it, saw a tiny plastic hourglass, probably purloined from a board game at Kady’s. 

“I enchanted it,” Alice explained. “Everything I’ve read and remember from before indicates that time isn’t going to be exactly linear once you get into Eliot’s mind. It’s… There’s a reason the dreamland spell is going to work. You’re going to be on a different plane, basically. The hourglass will let you know when the exorcism is about to take place in real time.”

“Thanks,” Quentin said, heartfelt, imagining the time Alice had spent to make such a spell work. Had she slept at all these past two nights? He hadn’t, but he’d been so wrapped up in his own head.

Alice smiled tightly at him, and nodded at Julia. “Ready?”

Julia stepped inside the circle long enough to peck Quentin on the cheek. “Go get him, tiger. Remember--”

“Never say die.” Quentin took a deep breath, and steeled himself to follow Alice’s spellwork. She’d shown him the motions a dozen times, but he was still terrified he was going to fuck it all up. 

Alice took the lead, and he locked eyes with her, hands moving in sync. He could feel the ambient magic faltering, and then Julia broke the pipeline and unleashed the magical torrent. She took the brunt of the magic blast, hitting the ground hard, but was rising to her feet seconds later.

Quentin felt brighter, more alive than he had in ages as the magic wave washed over him, through him, into his very bloodstream. The spell curled and tightened around them, Alice’s hands flying with confidence as Quentin followed along, feeling as though the magic itself were performing the spell.

Then something that felt like a magical shockwave hit. Quentin closed his eyes against the bright flash of magic, and when he opened them, he was standing in the cottage back at Brakebills.

He spent a wild moment wondering what his body was doing, if it had fallen to the ground or if it was still standing there, motionless, caught in a web of magic, when he realized that he was _standing in the cottage_. He looked around, but the room was empty. 

“El?” he called out, then flinched, hoping the Monster hadn’t heard. The cottage looked just like he remembered, only completely empty. The makings of the Physical Kids’ signature cocktail were sitting out at the bar, and a book lay on the couch. Quentin walked over and picked it up; it was a copy of _The Girl Who Told Time_. 

He let the book fall open naturally, and found himself looking at the passage where young Jane Chatwin received the Time Key from an old man. He knew what the words said, had read and reread the book a hundred times since childhood, but he hadn’t looked at the pages themselves since living them out, long ago in Fillory. 

It made something deep inside him twist to think of Eliot reading those pages, getting a glimpse of what had become of Quentin after El had died. 

“Oh, Q, I thought you’d gone.” 

Quentin turned, book still in hand. Eliot was flitting across the room, picking things up and putting them back down, clearly on a mission of some sort, though Quentin couldn’t figure out a rhyme or reason to it to save his life. 

“I was just--” Quentin started, then Eliot interrupted, still utterly casual. “I know, I know, reading your book. Don’t you ever get a hankering for something new?” 

He lifted a cushion on the couch and said, “Ah-ha!” triumphantly, pulling out a vest. He tugged it on over his shirt, adjusting it. “Well, how do I look?”

Quentin had become used to seeing the Monster in Eliot’s body, unkempt and wearing t-shirts and shapeless, oversized jackets. Seeing Eliot dressed like himself was almost too much. Quentin didn’t trust himself to not say something idiotic and replied with a thumbs up.

“Thanks, you’re a dear,” Eliot said, patting Quentin twice on the cheek before continuing out of the room. 

Quentin stood there dumbfounded for the longest moment, free hand drifting up to touch his cheek, as if he could hold on to the feel of Eliot’s fingers against his skin if he only stood still long enough. _The Girl Who Told Time_ was still open in his left hand, and Quentin stared at the line of text describing how the old man sadly shared that a friend had helped solve the Mosaic.

Slowly it dawned on Quentin that Eliot wasn’t being obtuse on purpose, that it just didn’t occur to him that Quentin was actually Quentin. Between Penny’s firsthand experience with visiting Eliot and Alice’s knowledge of how minds functioned, they’d figured out that Eliot had been keeping himself company with memory-versions of people he cared for, but Quentin hadn’t realized, somehow, that meant Eliot would be used to seeing Quentin. Used to talking to him, casually touching him, sharing moments with him.

Quentin was shocked at how jealous he felt, suddenly, of the memory version of himself that had spent these last few months with everything Quentin himself had craved. 

Alice had told him that time would move differently once he was inside Eliot’s mind, so he took a moment to gather himself before following the sound of Eliot in the kitchen. He should have plenty of time. 

He stopped in the doorway, watching Eliot take a pan of cupcakes out of the oven. “I know that we don’t actually have to eat here,” Eliot said, dumping the cupcakes carelessly out on the counter, then carefully setting them upright to cool. “But if I’m going to spend my last days alone with the memory-versions of my friends, I’m at least going to have some fucking cupcakes for them to eat.”

Eliot thought these were his final days. Quentin realized he was still holding the book, and set it down on the sideboard without really looking. “El, these aren’t your last days.”

“See, that’s how I know you aren’t real,” Eliot said, shaking a finger at him. “Real Quentin would happily accept our mutual doom.”

His hands were shaking, Quentin realized. Eliot wasn’t flitting about carelessly, he was out of ideas and was trying to find some way to fill his last moments with happiness instead of despair.

“Eliot,” Quentin said, as firmly as he could without his voice shaking, “I’m real, and you aren’t going to die. We have a plan.”

“I’ve heard that one before,” Eliot said. “Look, it’s nice of my subconscious -- or my sub-subconscious? Am I my own subconscious here? -- to try to make me feel better, but it’s fine. I’ve lived more lives than I was meant to, at this point.”

Quentin did the only thing he could think of, and reached out and touched the back of Eliot’s hand briefly. “El, we’re going to get through this.”

Eliot’s smile was tight. “See, this is why I was trying to keep you away, Memory Q. Hope’s just going to make this worse.”

Just then, the cottage shook, as if an earthquake had hit. Quentin grabbed onto the island to steady himself, and Eliot flung his arms over the cupcakes, protecting them from a fine layer of dust that fell from the ceiling. “Not the cupcakes!” 

“What the hell?” Quentin said, staring around. This was Eliot’s happy place. It was anchored firmly in his mind; it should be completely unaffected by anything the Monster was doing. Alice and Penny had been in agreement about that; it was why they had figured Quentin had the safest job of them all.

“Oh, don’t act like you haven’t experienced a mindquake yet,” Eliot said, picking up each cupcake to inspect it for dust. Two were deemed inedible and tossed carelessly over his shoulder, where they disappeared before they hit the ground. “It’s grossly unfair if you get to reset while I have to remember you dying in a dozen of the damn things.”

He waved his hand, as if he were making Quentin remember his apparent multiple untimely deaths. Quentin felt as though the ground were still shifting beneath his feet, and his earlier jealousy made his mouth feel like it was full of ash.

“El,” Quentin tried again, “It’s me. I’m here.”

The words were weak, even for him. Eliot just handed him a cupcake. It was suddenly magically frosted in thick buttercream. “I know and I love you for it.”

Another shift beneath Quentin’s feet, but this time Eliot seemed to feel it too. “Oh, joy, another leak,” he said, moving back towards the common room. 

“A leak?” Quentin asked, hurrying to catch up to Eliot. A thousand words were caught up in his throat -- the plan, first and foremost, but underneath that all the words he’d choked back while staring at Eliot’s possessed face -- but he felt caught up in a wave.

“All my goddamn memories,” Eliot said, sounding exasperated, as if he’d gone over this before. “It’s like they’re unmoored. They keep breaking through, which is a huge fucking problem, because that means _they_ could break through.”

In the center of the common room of the Cottage, right where the bookshelves normally were, sat the bed they’d shared in Fillory past. Quentin would recognize it anywhere -- the simple wooden frame that had been there when they’d arrived, the way the ropes were knotted to keep the mattress from sagging, the quilt that had become faded and ragged but here was still bright and unworn. Arielle was sleeping in the center of it, hair sweaty and frazzled, her cheeks still flushed bright from effort. She was utterly beautiful, and Quentin stopped still at the sight of her, exhausted from childbirth.

Past Quentin was sitting on the edge of the bed, a swaddled infant in his hands. He wasn’t holding the baby correctly -- Quentin wanted to reach out and adjust his hold, to support Teddy’s neck better, to more evenly distribute the weight -- but it was close, and he was staring at the baby’s sleeping face as if it was the answer he’d never thought to seek.

Quentin could feel the ghost-weight of Teddy in his own hands, and looked over at Eliot. His Eliot, not the Fillorian version that was hovering near Teddy and his father.

To his surprise, Eliot looked upset at the memory. 

“El,” Quentin said, touching Eliot’s shoulder lightly. “It’s okay.”

“It keeps infecting my happy place with these memories,” Eliot said quietly. 

“Isn’t this a happy memory?” Quentin asked, then for the first time paid attention to the Memory version of Eliot, and the expression on his face. When Teddy had been born, Quentin had been so wrapped up in his own joy and nervousness that he’d missed it, but now it was plain. Eliot looked stricken.

He reached over and grabbed his Eliot’s hand. 

Eliot said, “It never felt real to me, you know? Like it was just some joke, especially when Fray appeared. Fen felt every step of the journey, and she mourned, and I didn’t understand her and that damn log, but right then -- that’s the moment she became real to me, and I’d already lost her.”

Eliot’s daughter. Quentin watched as his past self stared in wonder while Eliot’s past self looked on in despair, and wondered what else he had missed, how much else he’d been oblivious to.

“You were a great father,” Quentin said, because it was true. “If she’d lived, you would have been as incredible for her as you were for Teddy.”

“I wasn’t, not at first. I tried with Fray, once I got back, but it wasn’t the same.” Eliot sighed. “I never even named her. I never held her.” 

Their memory selves were now sitting side by side, and Quentin handed the baby over without a second thought. His entire focus was on the infant, and he missed the way Eliot tensed as the warm weight settled against his chest. Missed the brightness of Eliot’s eyes. 

The memory faded away, the bed replaced with bookshelves once again, and Quentin wanted to bring it back, wanted the scene to play out to its end, when his past self had told Eliot what he and Arielle had already discussed, when he’d cemented the bond between them and made sure Eliot knew he was part of their family. 

Another shift beneath their feet, and there was Eliot telling Margo she shouldn’t be the one to run for king. Eliot saying something carelessly cruel to Fen. Eliot staring at the grill of a blood-splattered school bus. Eliot standing over Mike’s motionless body. Eliot breaking Quentin’s heart. All happening at once, in different parts of the room, then another shift and the room was silent and still.

Quentin realized what had been happening, why Eliot was so defeated. He was under attack. It reminded Quentin of how he’d felt after touching the abyss key, only instead of Eliot’s darker self attacking him, it was a barrage of memories. The Monster must somehow have known, and it was attacking Eliot with the things it knew would cut the deepest.

“How long has this been happening?” Quentin asked, and he couldn’t keep the quiet horror out of his voice.

Eliot looked down at him, startled, and said carefully, “Since Penny found his way here.”

He’d lost the glib tone altogether, and Quentin hoped -- dared to hope -- that Eliot was realizing that he was real.

“And you were making cupcakes?” Quentin couldn’t help but ask, though he cut himself off before he added the, “I love you,” at the end that wanted to come tripping off his tongue. It was such an Eliot thing to do -- battle an onslaught of despair with baked goods. 

“Seemed like a good way to say fuck you,” Eliot shrugged. “And I got to relive my middle school strategy of eating my feelings. Win-win.”

Quentin smiled at Eliot, and -- this was happening, he was smiling at Eliot and holding his hand and talking about cupcakes of all the fucking things in the world, and everything might be shit but this moment, this moment was worth it.

“I’ve missed you so much,” he said. “The Monster -- it’s done terrible things, and I’ve helped it do them, but your body’s safe. I’ve made sure it didn’t do anything permanent to you.”

“Awww, Q.” Eliot’s expression was soft; Quentin recognized it from the Mosaic timeline but he hadn’t seen that expression since. “You’re a sweetheart.”

“Once you broke through, I knew we could save you,” Quentin said, leaving out the fact that he’d been certain before that that Eliot had been gone forever. “How did you manage that?”

“There was a door, hidden away in my memories,” Eliot said. “But I can’t reach it anymore. My mind’s overrun. This is the last safe place, and as you see--” He gestured wildly around. “Not so safe anymore.”

“Which is a problem,” Quentin said. “We thought this part of your mind would be stable.”

“So everyone else is okay? Margo? Fen?” Eliot looked altogether too grateful at the thought; Quentin nodded numbly. Eliot had given up, and Quentin felt oddly culpable, because he’d almost given up, too. 

“They’re fine. Fen’s ruling Fillory, and Margo went on a quest and got a pair of axes that are supposed to exorcise you.” Quentin smiled a little. “She’s a badass with them.”

“So if she’s going to go full Shining on the Monster, why are you here?” Eliot sat down on the couch, the same comfortable one they’d spent hours on back when they attended Brakebills, and patted the spot beside him. Quentin sank down. 

“I’m the backup plan. I’m here to help you break through any defenses the Monster has left,” Quentin said. “After the god-killing bullet failed, we thought we shouldn’t put all our eggs in one basket. Hence the inception.” Quentin gestured around Eliot’s mind.

“Probably a good call, though you could have brought along a dream-Tom Hardy,” Eliot said, tapping his fingers against the knee. “So, to recap -- Margo’s gonna slay the Monster, while we figure out how to get me back in the driver’s seat. All while avoiding the mindquakes.”

“The mindquakes are definitely a problem,” Quentin said.”You said that before, there was a door hidden in your memories. Are you sure we can’t just access it again?”

Eliot responded by leading him to the front door. He flung it open, and outside was--- an abyss. It reminded Quentin of Blackspire, but worse, somehow, with wailing winds and the sense that things with sharp teeth lay just beyond what they could see.

Eliot struggled to shove the door closed, and it took Quentin pushing with him to get the door to finally latch. 

“Um,” Quentin said. “I’m guessing your mind didn’t look like that before.”

“Not quite, no,” Eliot agreed. There was another rumble at their feet, and dust fell from the ceiling. A door swung open under the stairs, and through it Quentin could see a middle school aged Eliot sitting alone at a table, head in his hands. Eliot glared at the memory, as if it would dissipate from the sheer strength of his disapproval, but it didn’t. 

Quentin stared at the familiar set of middle school Eliot’s shoulders, that slump that Quentin still hadn’t shook himself, and realized what he had to do. What Julia would do in this situation. “You’re looking at these memories wrong.”

“I’m pretty sure there’s only one way to view my most pathetic moments,” Eliot said sharply. 

“No, I mean… within context. The Monster is shoving your moments of despair at you, right? Things that make you forget who you are.”

“That is most definitely me,” Eliot said, gesturing. Another memory of Eliot appeared on the stairs, this one a teen with a sullen twist to his mouth, sitting on the stairs, staring up at a woman who had to be Eliot’s mother as she cried.

“It is,” Quentin agreed. “It’s you in your shittiest moments. When you hated who you were.”

“Yeah, got that part, thanks.”

“But if you hadn’t been that kid at the table, or a little shit to your mother, you wouldn’t have become the Eliot you are now,” Quentin said. He wished he could call Julia, she was much better at this than he was. Even Margo would have a better twist to her words. Eliot was stuck with Quentin, though. “We all have those shitty moments, El, it makes us human.”

“Yeah, but I’ve had enough tours of my worst memories to last a lifetime,” Eliot said, still staring up at his teenage counterpart on the stairs. “Why can’t I get a slideshow of Eliot’s Top Five Orgasms or something fun like that?”

Quentin kind of wanted that slideshow himself. He wondered if he’d caused any of them himself --surely that time under the plum trees at Arielle’s family farm had ranked, it was in Quentin’s top five for sure -- but now definitely wasn’t the time to bring _that_ up. 

Eliot continued on, obviously oblivious to the memories he’d stirred up in Quentin. “It just seems supremely unfair to me that it goes around pretending to be a child -- where’s Charlton? He’d back me up on this -- and then knows exactly which strings to pull.”

“Charlton?” Quentin asked.

“Poncy fellow. Velvet doublet and still somehow manages to be a nerd,” Eliot said. “He was the Monster’s previous host, until I shot him. He’s shockingly cool with that.”

“And he’s in your mind?” That didn’t make sense. 

“Yeah. I mean, he was? I haven’t seen him in a while,” Eliot said vaguely. “It’s… it’s weird here, Q. Things don’t always make sense. And everything is just so unrelentingly awful. I had to traipse through all my worst memories to find the damn door to talk to you, and now here we are, getting the greatest hits of my darkest days thrown back at me.”

“So you’re saying you visited these memories to find the door,” Quentin said slowly, “and the same ones are now being flung at you?”

“Not all are the same but… you could call them required related memories,” Eliot said slowly. “Same songs, different verses.”

Quentin thought of the Monster, suddenly, and the way it had waited until Quentin’s grief had been spent, had been dulled of its sharpest edges by smashing his father’s favorite things, to tell him that Eliot was dead. “It’s using your own emotions against you, to tear you down.” 

There was a crashing sound, and the walls around them shook and rattled. 

“I think the upstairs just collapsed,” Eliot said, looking heavenward. 

“That seems like it’s not the best thing to happen to the only stable part of your mind.” Quentin ran his hand through his hair, trying to focus. 

“Seems kind of like everything’s a garbage fire, yes.” Eliot glared around the room, where another set of bad memories were playing in high def. A child version of Eliot with a truly terrible haircut ran around an Eliot that Quentin recognized, from his spiral after Mike’s death. 

And there, sitting in front of the fireplace on steps that belonged in the throne room back at Whitespire, sat versions of the both of them: Eliot with a peach still clasped carelessly in one hand and Quentin with the letter from his past self.

Quentin froze, looking at Eliot. “That’s one of your worst memories?”

He knew he hadn’t imagined the look of joy on Eliot’s face when he’d temporarily taken over his body from the Monster. _Peaches and plums, motherfucker_ was hardly ambiguous, and Quentin had spent so much time replaying that moment in his mind, over and over and wishing desperately he’d realized Eliot was himself sooner, that they’d been able to share more words. But he’d never once doubted what Eliot meant. The joy in his eyes, the way he’d laughed -- the words hadn’t been cruel. Not in the slightest.

Eliot looked at their past selves, then turned to Quentin. “This isn’t how I intended for this to go, but fuck it. I ran away, Q. I ran away hard because it was too fucking terrifying. I knew I was going to fuck things up.”

“You would never--” Quentin started, but Eliot laid a finger across Quentin’s lips. 

“I would have and you know it. I fuck everything up, Q, especially the things I love.” His hand drifted away from Quentin’s lips to caress his cheek, to rest gently on Quentin’s jawline, thumb pressing against his pulse.

It was too much and not enough all at once; the impact of Eliot’s words and the shivery feelings brought on by the press of Eliot’s hand in that familiar pattern. The Monster had done the same motion, had touched his face just as lightly, but it had only caused Quentin’s skin to feel brittle and his fists to clench. The same caress from Eliot made him weak-kneed and flustered.

“El,” he said, which wasn’t enough, couldn’t begin to describe the torrent of emotion that he was holding back, because Eliot loved him. Eliot loved him, and Eliot was standing there right in front of him, _touching_ him. Joy burst through his veins like magic itself, propelling Quentin forward into a kiss he thought he’d never experience again.

Eliot’s hand slipped back to tangle into the nape of Quentin’s hair, and Eliot’s mouth was soft and inviting. It was _too much_ \-- Quentin felt like Eliot was everywhere, from the heat of his mouth to the press of Eliot’s knee against his thigh, and it was everything he’d dreamt of. Everything that he’d missed since returning to this timeline, since returning to his own youth. This was fifty years of kisses condensed into one, and Quentin never wanted it to end. He could die happily in this moment, the rest of the world be damned. 

Eliot mumbled words into Quentin’s mouth, not bothering to pull back enough to make them legible, but Quentin understood. He missed this too, he missed the easy way they’ve always fit together. Missed the way that even the sloppiest and careless kisses between them felt important.

Eliot was holding him tight, Quentin slowly realized, dazed as he was. Eliot was holding him like Quentin was the lifeline, keeping him buoyant in treacherous waters. “I’m here, I’m here,” Quentin managed to say when the kiss broke, before Eliot reclaimed his mouth.

Quentin might have stayed there wrapped up in Eliot —Eliot, who had apparently missed him as desperately as Quentin had— but the ground shook beneath his feet, hard enough to make him stumble. 

Eliot caught him, gripping his shoulders roughly as he regained his own balance. Quentin was momentarily shocked, not just at the mindquake bit at how Eliot looked, with glossy-bright eyes and swollen mouth. He looked like he was halfway to ravished and all they’d done was kiss. 

Quentin wondered briefly if he looked the same to Eliot, if his heart was writ across his face In flushed skin and parted lips. He hoped so; words had done nothing but fail them. Fillory past had been a refuge, and they’d never had to spell anything out. 

Then the cottage shifted beneath their feet, and Quentin fell to the floor roughly, unable to keep his balance. It was like the entire cottage has upended itself, and when the shaking stopped, furniture and books and glasses lay broken on the floor. He stared up at the newly formed cracks in the ceiling and then slowly sat up. 

Eliot pushed himself up on his elbows, looking dazed. “The fuck?”

An aftershock rattled through the walls, which thankfully remained standing. Pictures had clattered to the floor, shattering on impact. Quentin marveled that he and Eliot were unharmed. “They’re getting worse.”

“No shit,” Eliot said, sitting up fully, wrapping one arm around his bent knee. “Are they doing the spell on the Monster?”

Quentin pulled the tiny plastic hourglass that Alice had enchanted out of his pocket. There was still sand remaining, though not nearly as much as Quentin would like. It felt, suddenly, as if the exorcism was the end of the line for them, that there wasn’t anything left for them afterwards and these were their last moments together. “Not yet.”

“Damn,” Eliot said. “I hoped…. Well. It’s just the monster throwing my own worst memories at me to destroy what’s left of my happy place. No need to panic.”

Quentin reached out and took Eliot’s hand. So much had just happened, and the touch of Eliot’s skin on his own grounded him, let him think. “This is your mind.”

“Yes, Q, it is,” Eliot said, making his _Todd just asked me a question_ face. 

“They’re _your_ memories, El,” Quentin said, confidence building. “You’re the one who controls it. You’re the one who lets them be your worst memories. Like-- like the thing with Teddy. You just have to recontextualize them, you know? Don’t look at it as your failure as a father, but as the beginning of your success.”

“Who are you and where is my Q?” 

Quentin tried to ignore the warm feeling in his chest at being called Eliot’s. “I know, but just go with it, okay? I mean, your mind is literally breaking down around us, what the fuck do we have to lose?”

“Fine, fine,” Eliot said. He climbed to his feet, dusting off his trousers and straightening his vest. “Just going to defend my mind with all the positivity we can muster. Piece of cake.”

Quentin stood up slowly, thinking about the spell Alice had used to send him here. It was meant to lend dreamers strength.

He closed his eyes, focusing on a moment when Eliot had brought him nothing but joy. There had been a thousand tiny moments like that over their lives, intermingled with moments of equal frustration and aggravation. Nothing involving sex, that was too easy for Eliot to misinterpret. Something simple and undeniable.

The moment came to him, and he focused on it, projecting everything he could remember, from the moment itself, and everything it’d made him feel. It felt strange, after all the work he’d done (at Penny’s insistence) to hold everything inside to keep his mental walls strong, but oddly freeing. This was the truest part of his heart, and he wanted Eliot to see. 

This was Eliot’s mind, but Quentin was welcome here. He felt the tug and pull of a spell gone right as the memory formed before them.

“What’s this?” Eliot touched Quentin’s shoulder lightly, but left his hand resting there, thumb tracing circles against the wooden flesh as he watched their past selves. 

“A start,” Quentin said. 

Their past selves were sprawled in the grass near the mosaic. It was months into the endless puzzle, long enough in that they felt comfortable taking an hour away from the puzzle mid-afternoon just to enjoy the day. Quentin could remember that afternoon like it’d just happened, not like it was fifty years and another lifetime past. 

The grass had been spring-soft beneath them, the sky wide and blue with clouds drifting high above, and they’d laughingly started sharing what they saw in them, after talking about all the things they missed from home (their friends, electricity, television, the internet all ranked high). Eliot’s suggestions were equally obscene and ridiculous, and Quentin remembered wishing he could be more like Eliot even as he pointed to another cloud and described it as a dragon, wings aloft and wisps of smoke escaping its mouth.

Past Eliot’s focus was entirely on the clouds, and he never noticed how Quentin’s gaze turned to him, the soft smile on his face, or how Quentin had brushed his knuckles against Eliot’s just to feel the buzzing in his veins that brief contact with Eliot’s skin had caused.

Quentin looked over, now, and saw that Eliot didn’t miss it this time. That Eliot could see that Quentin had longed for him long before he’d worked up the courage to kiss him.

“Q,” Eliot said.

“I mean, I definitely wanted you well before then,” Quentin said, because he had to say the words. Had to make sure Eliot understood, because all those years he’d just assumed Eliot knew Quentin’s heart. “I didn’t regret that threesome because it was with _you_ , El. I regretted fucking up things with everyone. But that moment -- “ he pointed to where his past self was laughing, looking actually _carefree_ \-- “was when I realized that being stuck in the past wasn’t such a bad thing, because it was with _you_.”

“Oh,” Eliot said, and it was such a small sound, barely more than a whisper, for all the wonder it held. Around them the cottage was in ruins, but the memories that haunted it seemed fainter, as wispy as the clouds Quentin had conjured.

Quentin kissed him again, stomach fluttering as much as it had that night in long-ago Fillory, mentally pushing as much of his love and admiration and awe of the man Eliot had become into it. 

Eliot responded in kind, and Quentin felt whole for the first time since looking up from the mosaic to realize Eliot had quietly and peacefully died. Eliot was here, and he loved him just as deeply as Quentin loved him, and that might not be everything they needed but for right now, it was enough. 

Eliot’s hand was warm on Quentin’s waist, his thumb digging in just right, the way he knew Quentin liked, and the shattered remains of Eliot’s happy place around them seemed to fade away, become insignificant. All that mattered was Eliot, solid and reassuringly _real_ somehow, even though Quentin knew both their bodies were elsewhere.

The kiss broke easily. Eliot’s mouth curved up into a gentle, fond smile. “You couldn’t have said all that fifty years ago?”

“I thought you knew,” Quentin said. “We’re fucking morons, the both of us.”

Eliot laughed, and god, Quentin had missed that sound. Missed how beautiful he was when joy lit up his features. Around them, memories of Eliot’s worst moments seemed temporarily held at bay. 

Quentin gestured to them. “Take away their power. You can do this.”

Eliot nodded, looking around. “Time to go full Labyrinth on my past. _You have no power over me_.”

Quentin reached out and laced his fingers with Eliot’s, sending all the strength and power and as much magic as the dreamer spell would allow along that connection. Eliot’s eyes fluttered closed, and around them, the memories faded further, until they were the faintest mist of thoughts and feelings drifting through the ruins of Eliot’s happy place.

Eliot’s brow was furrowed, and Quentin could feel the magic thrumming under his skin, somehow not enough to completely banish the thoughts that hung around like Dementors. Quentin waited, whispering as much encouragement as he dared without breaking Eliot’s concentration, but the mists remained.

If he could just push more of his strength into Eliot. Their palms were pressed together, hot and sweaty, magic buzzing between them, and it just wasn’t enough. They needed more, more contact. Just _more_.

This was mind-magic, and that relied more on intuition than anything else. Quentin acted before thinking it through, and pressed his other hand against Eliot’s heart. It felt _right_ , like Quentin’s very magic wanted to help Eliot, and the connection between them deepened. 

It didn’t take very much effort at all for Quenin to lean up on his tip-toes and press his lips to Eliot’s. Eliot’s chin dipped down into the kiss immediately, and the magic flowing between their hands, into Eliot’s heart, felt like it clicked into place, and Quentin could feel what Eliot was feeling, could sense the battles he was waging against his own darkest moments.

It was so simple for Quentin to see how to help, pressing his own love and admiration for Eliot forward. Letting Eliot see himself how Quentin saw him. Quentin knew all these dark self-destructive emotions intimately, had battled them himself for as long as he’d remembered, but when it was Eliot suffering it was so simple to see how wrong they were. How skewed, how inaccurate.

He was transparent to Eliot here, because he could feel Eliot’s amusement coming back at him, and he realized that this was exactly how Eliot felt about him in his darkest moments, astonished that Quentin couldn’t see himself how Eliot saw him.

The hourglass in his pocket grew warm, and Quentin knew that they had to finish this.

The misty, indistinct memories crowded around, solidifying as they did. Quentin broke the kiss to say, “Margo’s about to use the Sorrows. It’s time.”

Together, Eliot and Quentin pushed back against the demons of Eliot’s past. Eliot gathered the darkest thoughts up, reminding himself of brighter times that had followed, things that wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t first suffered. Teenage loneliness banished at the thought of how that lead him to shedding his old self and becoming who he had always meant to be. How it led him to Margo, and that steadfast friendship and love. 

Quentin providing happy moments to counteract the bad when Eliot himself was unable. He touched on a memory of Eliot’s disconnect from the birth of his daughter, and gave him a cherished memory to help ease that pain -- Teddy, a man grown and expecting his firstborn, confiding in Quentin that he hoped to be the kind of father Eliot had been for him, accepting and loving without expectation. 

The memories became less distinct as they lost their power over Eliot, as they no longer tore him apart, and around them, the damage to the cottage seemed to lessen. Them, as the final memory lost its sharp edges, it felt like the air itself became easier to breathe.

There was a faint glowing light as the cracks sealed themselves. The cottage healed: walls straightening, ceiling reforming, shattered glass disappearing.

Eliot was at the center of it all with a pleased, almost surprised smile. The ghost-like memories remained, but they seemed lighter somehow. Before they’d felt dense, weighted down with despair. Now they simply _were_ , a chronicle of Eliot’s life and everything he’d fought through, but no longer attacking him.

“We did it,” Eliot said. “Now we just have to--”

He flung open the front door. Quentin followed, and outside was -- it was the mosaic, just as it’d been. They stepped outside, and Quentin pulled the hourglass out of his pocket. As the last grain of sand fell, a huge bolt of lighting split the sky, immediately followed by thunder loud enough to send them to their knees.

“Now!” Quentin grabbed Eliot’s face in his hands, and pressed a kiss on his mouth as rain poured down. “I love you, El. Come back to me.”

“Love you, too, Q,” Eliot replied. The rain plastered his hair down to his head, and for a strange moment he looked just like the Monster as he cast his eyes to the sky. “See you on the flip side.”

Another crash of thunder, and suddenly Quentin was standing in a circle, staring at Alice and Julia.

He’d been soaked through with rain a moment before, the taste of Eliot on his lips. He blinked, confused, but there wasn’t time. He had to get to Margo and to Eliot.

“Did it work?” Alice asked, but Julia’s wide eyes said she already knew the answer. 

“The Monster was attacking Eliot’s mind, but we fought back,” Quentin said, words feeling too insignificant to describe what they’d fought through in Eliot’s heart. “I think it worked. There was… I think Margo did it. We have to go see...”

He couldn’t put words to the rest of the thought. Couldn’t say aloud, _see if Eliot survived_.

Eliot had to have. The world couldn’t be so cruel as to take him away, not when they finally _understood_.

“Then let’s get the fuck out of here,” Julia said. Quentin realized suddenly that they’d never really planned for the after, for how to get to Eliot. Fillory had never felt further away.

Then suddenly Penny was there, expression guarded. Quentin had never been so glad to see Penny ever, and he hurried to him. “Is he--”

“Come on,” Penny said, holding out his hand. Quentin took it without hesitation, glancing at Alice and Julia. Alice shook her head slightly, but Julia settled her hand on Penny’s other shoulder. 

Penny offered nothing about Eliot’s fate, and Quentin didn’t ask again, suddenly struck with a deep fear that he didn’t want to know what had happened. The world around them shifted without warning - it was even more disorienting than leaving Eliot’s mind had been, despite expecting it. 

It took Quentin a second to put together what was happening -- Margo was crying, arms flung around Eliot, her Sorrows laying discarded on the marble floor. They were in the castle, in a room that mirrored the one the magic wellspring had been in in Blackspire. Eliot was on his back on the floor, and for a long terrible moment Quentin thought the worst.

Then he realized he could hear Eliot’s laughter, that Margo’s was clutching Eliot tight not out of grief but joy. Fen was crouched by his side, one hand tucked reassuringly against Margo’s shoulder. 

“El?” Quentin barely realized he’d spoken, just dropped Penny’s hand and rushed past Josh, who was nervously holding a heavily magicked jar, to drop down beside Fen.

Eliot smiled at him over Margo’s shoulder. All he said was, “Q,” but in the quaver of his voice was everything Quentin needed to hear -- love and gratitude and joy and hope, all wrapped up in that one syllable.

His hand sought out Quentin’s, and Quentin held it to his own heart, smiling. Eliot laughed, looking at the lovers past and present that surrounded him, then he glanced down at himself, seeing the pun-adorned t-shirt the Monster had worn, and he said, appalled, “What the fuck did that monster put me in?”

Quentin had missed that tone so much, had missed _Eliot_ so much. He couldn’t stop himself, just threw his arms around Margo and Eliot both, and closed his eyes as he realized that they’d won.

Eliot was back, and he was never letting him go.

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on [tumblr!](http://nokomiss.tumblr.com/)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] such a fooled heart (beatin' so fast)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19795897) by [exmanhater](https://archiveofourown.org/users/exmanhater/pseuds/exmanhater)




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